This High School Student Made His Own Jet Engine

Plenty of teenagers build their own go-karts, but not all of them strap a homemade jet engine onto the back. Chris Tomko, an 18-year-old from Connecticut, built this jet engine himself, building it from scratch rather than a kit. (We're sure he didn't quite smelt the metal himself, nitpickers.)

Tomko updates followers on the progress of his jet-powered machines on Tomkotech. There have been two variations of the engine. The G1 ran on propane, producing about 20 pounds of thrust, running for about nine minutes on a canister of fuel. The G2 has better performance: it tops out at 35 pounds of thrust, runs on diesel, and goes through nine gallons in an hour on top performance. That's far short of, say, an F-16, but far ahead of anything most of us made in high school.

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The self-described science and technology obsessive posted this video of the test of the jet engine go-cart. It looks like a total blast.